Genealogy Workshops
Presented by the library’s Special Collections staff and members of the Ranger Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), these events are free, open to the public, and appropriate for all levels of interest and experience. All levels will learn something new! We hope you will join us on the third Sunday each month.
NOTE: There will be no Genealogy Workshop held in December or January. We will resume in February!
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Family History on your Smartphone, iPad or Tablet
with Pamela Guye Holland
Sunday February 16 | 2 PM | Hilton Garden Room
Ever wonder how to use your smart device to retrieve, store, and share your genealogical data? This talk will cover apps that are available for family trees, DNA, note taking, family stories, oral history, cemeteries, managing your book collection, scanning photos and documents and more. All apps are free and available for Android and Apple, unless noted otherwise.
Pamela Guye Holland lives in Swampscott, Mass., and has been conducting genealogical research since 2001. Her specialties are Irish research and genetic genealogy. She serves on the boards of The Irish Ancestral Research Association (TIARA) and the New England Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists (NEAPG). She works at the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) and also takes private clients. She can be found at GenealogyByPamHolland.com.
Spinning Gold: Shaping Your Family Research into Compelling Stories
with Christine Halvorson
Sunday March 15 | 2 PM | Hilton Garden Room
Local author Chris Halvorson hopes this lecture and workshop will inspire attendees to dust off their boxes of family memorabilia and start mining them for golden stories—true or not. Attendees are encouraged to bring one memorabilia item or a significant photograph from their family to help in the afternoon’s discussion. Last fall, Halvorson published a young adult novel, “Inmate,” that is very loosely based on her family. She will focus on that book’s genesis, which was her curiosity about the technology behind such websites as ancestry.com.
“I had zero interest in researching my family. None,” she explains. “But my husband was researching his, and I was just fascinated by how all that data was inter-linked."
Halvorson will share her research process, the mistakes she’s made, and a bit about the story-writing process. “The work that goes into genealogical research so often never sees the light of day beyond, maybe, family members,” she said. “Every family has secrets and stories to tell. It’s a shame to let them molder unseen."
A Closer Look at Vital Records
with Robert Cameron Weir
Sunday April 19 | 2 PM | Levenson Room
They seem to be the simplest and most direct of all genealogical records, an official government document stating the facts of a birth, marriage or death, but with vital records there is more here than meets the eye. We’ll explore a range of complications, from unfaithful record copies, to uninformed informants, from marriages that never were, to births and deaths that didn’t happen where the record says they did. The goal is to hone our record analysis skills and thereby become better genealogists.
Robert Cameron Weir is a professional genealogist in Dover, where he specializes in hard problems. He is a graduate of Harvard College, and Boston University’s Certificate Program in Genealogical Research.
Robert blogs on genealogical topics at yourigins.com.
Stay tuned for future workshops in the series! Questions? Contact Nicole Luongo Cloutier.